Wednesday, January 1, 2014

And Another Right Bites The Dust

Your rights to privacy, free speech and unreasonable searches and seizures have just taken a giant hit. A Federal District Judge in New York has just ripped the guts out of the 4th Amendment to the U S Constitution.

Warrantless searches without probable cause or even suspicion are now part of a broader pattern of
aggressive government surveillance that collects information on the average presumed innocent American citizen, under lax standards, and without adequate oversight.

A federal judge in New York on December 31 upheld a government policy that permits officers at U.S. borders
to inspect and copy the contents of travelers’ laptops and other
devices without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman dismissed a
lawsuit by a university student and a group of criminal defense lawyers
and press photographers challenging regulations adopted by the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that allow searches of passengers’
electronic equipment at the nation’s borders, including at airports and
on trains.

The plaintiffs, who were represented by the American Civil
Liberties Union, allege that the policy violates their rights to privacy
and free speech. Korma, a judge in the Eastern District of New
York, said that the policy permits searches with or without suspicion,
and cited case law that held that “searches at our borders without
probable cause and without a warrant are nonetheless ‘reasonable.’”
He
said that “there is about a 10 in a million chance” that a U.S. citizen
or foreigner’s laptop will be searched. Two federal appeals courts have
held that searches of electronic devices are routine border searches.One federal appeals court has held that some searches may require reasonable
suspicion.
One of the plaintiffs, university student Pascal
Abidor, had his laptop inspected and taken by Customs and Border
Protection officers while he was on an Amtrak train from Montreal to New
York in May 2010. It was returned 11 days later.
Abidor could prove no
injury from the laptop’s confiscation and in any case, Korman said, the
officers had reasonable suspicion to inspect it.
Abidor, an
Islamic studies scholar and a dual French-American citizen, had images
of rallies by the militant Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah on his
laptop.
Catherine Crump, the ACLU attorney who argued the case in July 2011, expressed disappointment at the ruling.“Suspicionless
searches of devices containing vast amounts of personal information
cannot meet the standard set by the Fourth Amendment of the U s Constitution, which prohibits
unreasonable searches and seizures,” Crump said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, these searches are part of a broader pattern of
aggressive government surveillance that collects information on too many
innocent people, under lax standards, and without adequate oversight.”
The ACLU is considering an appeal.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

A top-secret National Security Agency hacking unit infiltrates computers around the world and breaks into the toughest data targets, according to internal documents quoted in a magazine report on Sunday. Details of how the division, known as Tailored Access Operations (TAO), steals data and inserts invisible "back door" spying devices into computer systems were published by the German magazine Der Spiegel. The magazine portrayed TAO as an elite team of hackers specialising in gaining undetected access to intelligence targets that have proved the toughest to penetrate through other spying techniques, and described its overall mission as "getting the ungettable."

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